Song of the Day
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Song of the Day: “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”
The heady freedom of the 1960s touched almost every aspect of society, from civil rights activism to gender equity to mass media. The ambitious “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, is a telling example of that liberal attitude. Written by…
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Song of the Day: “Jailhouse Blues”
Sam John Hopkins wasn’t known as “Lightnin’” until a music executive heard him play in a recording session in 1946. Ever since then, Hopkins’s gutsy vocals and impressive blues guitar helped him live up to his name. His “Jailhouse Blues”…
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Song of the Day: “Mannish Boy”
“I’m a man,” Muddy Waters growls on this hard-driving blues song. But in the next breath he sings, “I’m a man-child.” The subtleties of this message are often lost on audiences (and maybe even the artist himself). This is no…
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Song of the Day: “Jump Off The Roof”
One of the least talked-about and most heartfelt tracks off Vince Staples’s identify-defining album, Summertime ’06, dispenses with the bravado of his other lyrics. At the same time, “Jump Off The Roof” showcases the fatalism and lyrical prowess that have garnered…
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Song of the Day: “Don’t Tell Our Friends About Me”
Blake Mills is an accomplished studio guitarist who’s worked with a wide variety of impressive names including Lucinda Williams, Conor Oberst, Fiona Apple, Lana Del Ray, Norah Jones, Billy Gibbons, Band of Horses, and others. But Mills’s previous credits were…
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Song of the Day: “Fountain Stairs”
The influential indie group Deerhunter have allegedly described their unique music as “ambient punk.” Founding member Bradford Cox—known also for his side project, Atlas Sound—provides eerily beautiful vocals to accompany compositions boasting everything from pop-friendly melodies to reverb-laden psychedelia. All this…
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Song of the Day: “Tennessee Waltz”
Every music genre shifts its boundaries over time, and soul music has done so time and time again, beginning with its heyday in the 1960s. Sam Cooke, who achieved fame first as a young gospel performer in the 40s, is often considered its inventor.…
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Song of the Day: “Living For The City”
Stevland Hardaway Morris, aka Stevie Wonder, got his start playing for Motown Records in 1961. Today, he boasts a back catalog of some of the most iconic and original soul music in the world. Though Stevie Wonder started singing more than…
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Song of the Day: “Purple Rain”
Our history of rock-stars-turned-movie-actors goes back a long time, but one highlight has to be Prince’s performance in his bizarre 1984 drama, Purple Rain. Though chock full of laughably weird moments—critics dismissed the movie as “overlong,” “facile,” and a “letdown”—the film’s soundtrack…
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Song of the Day: “Coney Island Baby”
When listening to Tom Waits’s stately ballad, “Coney Island Baby,” one pictures an ancient Italian grandfather, standing on a windswept boardwalk, boasting about his granddaughter to anyone who will listen. “When I am with her,” he rattles, “I’m the richest man in…
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Song of the Day: “Sunday Candy”
In an interview with XXL magazine in 2014, Chance the Rapper pointed out the complex relationship between rap music and profits. He argued: “I don’t think selling [songs] is the right way to do it. It’s more about spreading it……
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Song of the Day: “God Only Knows”
Marvin Gaye was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame posthumously in 1987. Its biography of him names a little-known doo-wop song called “God Only Knows” as “critical to his musical awakening.” The Capris, though they had a string of…